


Fated Flowers

by huphilpuffs



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Getting Together, M/M, Reality AU, Roses, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-12-01 23:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11496672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huphilpuffs/pseuds/huphilpuffs
Summary: Soulmate AU where, every time your soulmate realizes new feelings for you, you get a rose. One random day in 2014, Dan wakes up with a red rose on his bedside table.





	Fated Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you goes out to Elizajane (insanityplays) for letting me run with this idea inspired by based on Rachel’s (phansdick) prompt for her latest fic, for the constant encouragement, and for beta'ing this for me.
> 
> Warnings: blood mention, food. If I missed anything please let me know.

In retrospect, writing their book so late was probably not the best idea.

Not in the wee hours of the morning when minds are either cycling through thoughts too deep to elaborate upon or so shallow and muddled that, come the next day, they make no sense, when laughter flows far more freely than words and smiles replace the furrowed brows of focus and progress takes the shape of a few jumbled words at a time.

One wayward step forward, two steps back.

But still; it’s fun.

Especially when Phil breaks out in giggles again, the sound echoing from the office’s slanted ceiling, loud enough to have Dan rolling his eyes, and turning his office chair so he can face where Phil is sitting on the couch.

His head is thrown back, pressing to the wall behind him, eyes closed and crinkled at the corners, tongue poking out from between his teeth. There’s something too happy about the sight, of his bright pyjama pants and t-shirt with a smile so joyous, and surely it’s the lack of sleep that has Dan smiling before he says a word.

“Your story’s that funny, is it?” he says. “You think pretty highly of yourself, Mr. Lester.”

There’s still laughter ringing in the silence, past the muffle of Phil’s hand over his mouth when he shrugs. “Says you, Mr. Phil’s number one fan.”

Heat blooms at Dan’s cheeks, and he reaches forward, jams his toes against Phil’s knee. “Shut up.”

But he’s laughing now, too, certain his dimple is showing in his cheek. His empty word document goes forgotten as he stands, drawn towards where Phil is sitting, weight sinking onto the uncomfortable couch. His fingers fumble for a throw pillow, crush it to his chest. His gaze falls first to Phil’s face, the smile still lifting the corners of his mouth, the laughter sparkling in his eyes.

Then to his laptop. “Okay, what’s so funny.”

He grabs the laptop for himself, slides it onto his own lap. Phil attempts to explain in giggles by Dan’s ear, soft and happy and laced with middle of the night fatigue. Dan ignores him, rolling his eyes again as he turns his gaze to something actually useful, to lines of black text.

There’s an amused smile playing at the corners of his mouth as he reads, anticipation bubbling with every time Phil’s eyes flick between the computer screen and his face.

Laughter booms from his chest when he reaches the end, the point where Phil got too sidetracked by his own amusement to continue.

“Naked Harry Styles?” he manages between giggles, voice too loud and words too high pitched. “What the actual fuck, Phil?”

Phil’s eyes go wide, grin widening, quiet chuckles still tumbling from his lips. “It’s funny!”

It is, funny enough to have Dan still swallowing back his own amusement as he slides the laptop back to Phil, nudge’s his friend’s shoulder with his own. “I think you just have a thing for Harry Styles.”

Phil nudges back, still laughing as his fingers form wordless jumbles of letters on the keyboard. “Well I think you’re just jealous.”

“Of naked Harry Styles?” And god, it should be embarrassing that he’s laughing again, feels the sound in his chest more than he hears it in the office space. But Phil is, too, pressing himself closer to Dan, his shoulder bouncing with his amusement, with every giggle that tumbles from his lips. “I hate to break to you, but I have zero interest in being _birthed_ from your chest.”

Phil laughs and pushes Dan away only to drag him back. “Not of Harry Styles, you idiot,” he says. “Of me.”

“Why in flying fuck would I be jealous of _you_ in that story?”

Their laughter is constant now, a pleasant ringing in Dan’s ears, a constant movement on the couch. Warm and happy and laced with exhaustion, too giddy and dumb, but he can’t swallow it back anymore, can’t keep the images of Phil and Harry Styles and himself in their kitchen after Phil gave _birth_ , can’t keep himself from imagining the positions reversed as Phil’s voice comes, muddled, past his laughter.

“Oh, c’mon, Dan. We both know you secretly have a thing a for Harry Styles.”

That has Dan’s spine straightening, eyes widening. “Excuse me,” he says. And before he can think about it, he’s reaching over to jab his fingers into Phil’s sides until he’s twisting away, gasping between his laughs. “Last I checked, you’re the one who wrote a fanfiction that features him _naked._ ”

Phil hiccups, giggly and smiling and squirming away from Dan’s tickles. He’s trying to speak, only for it to die in his throat, and his hands fumble over Dan’s, trying to push them away.

“Stop. _Stop._ ”

Yet Dan’s fingers remain at Phil’s sides, tickling him as he tries to squirm away. “Not until you admit that you have a thing for Harry Styles,” he teases.

Phil giggles in response, and slaps helplessly at Dan’s hands. “I _don’t_ ,” he hiccups.

Dan responds by redoubling his efforts, leaning in even closer as Phil scooches away, doubled over where Dan’s fingers keep drifting along his sides. He tickles along Phil’s ribcage, laughing too as tears start to leak from Phil’s eyes. “I think you do,” he sings, teasing.

Phil shakes his head against the back of the sofa. “I don’t. Dan, I _don’t_ ,” he squeaks, gasps for breath as he tries to push Dan away again. “Stop. _Stop._ ”

He does. Eventually. When Phil’s panting and Dan’s tired of chasing him down to couch to continue tickling him. When the joke has died and it’s easier to just sink back against the couch, to let his laughter die out in puffs of amusement that keep breaking the silence.

They’re wedged to the edge of the couch now, pressed together, and when Phil finally seems to accept that the assault of tickling is done, he sinks against Dan’s shoulder, head falling so their temples are pressed together.

“I don’t have a thing for Harry Styles,” he mutters.

Dan’s responding laugh is but a puff, quieter now, sleepier. “I think you do.”

“I do not,” says Phil. He pulls away, drifting too close, silent and sleepy, and when Dan turns to face him, wide eyed and smiling, says “I–”

“You what?”

There’s one last giggle, another moment before Phil’s knocking their heads together again, letting his weight sink even more into Dan’s side. “I’m tired. It’s past my bedtime.”

And so they sit there, silent, until their computer screens go black, and dragging themselves to their bedrooms is the only logical option.

\---

Dan remembers that first, when he wakes up the next morning.

Their shoulders pressed together, still shaking with silent amusement even after the joke had stopped really being funny, after the tickle fight had ended. Phil’s fringe wayward and in his eyes, his hair tickling the side of Dan’s face because they were pressed _so close._

The rest is a blur. Too active, too lively for his sleep muddled brain to make it flash as vivid behind closed eyelids. It’s the high-pitched squeals of laughter and the blinking cursor on Phil’s computer screen and Phil’s hands pushing Dan’s away as he was tickled. It’s happy in its soft obscurity.

Maybe it’s because Dan’s brain is sappy in the morning that a voice in the back of his mind reminds him that moments like those are exactly what he’d always wanted in a best friend.

His face is still pressed to his pillow, eyes still unopened, darkness swirling at the edges of kaleidoscope colours. He can feel the smile stretching across his cheeks, bursting past the irritation of needing to wake up. And after one last deep breath, one last indulgence of not-actually-sleep, he forces himself to just get up.

Well, open his eyes at least.

The first thing he sees is his clock, reminding him of how royally fucked up his sleeping schedule is as it tells him that it’s not really morning, but the afternoon.

The second thing he sees is the red rose sitting right in front of it.

\---

Dan had first heard of the roses when he was four years old, and it had dawned on him to ask his mother the story behind every single decoration hanging on their walls. He’d gone around the house pointing to things, asking his mother _why,_ and she’d explain with a laugh that _I just like how it looks, little bear._

One such decoration was the bundle of dried roses pressed into a frame, which actually did have a story.

His mother had taken it down from the wall for once, hugging it to her chest with one hand as she reached for Dan’s hand with the other. She’d led him, without a word, to the living room, sat on the couch and drawn him next to her, holding him to her side. The frame had sat on her lap, glass gleaming under yellow light, the flowers dried and faded within.

“The roses are special,” she’d told him. “They’re messages from the universe, straight to you, that you’re soulmate has certain feelings for you.”

His brow had furrowed, and he’d pressed his fingers to the glass. “What’s a so-mate?”

She’d laughed, but her response had been quiet and understandable. She’d told him that everyone had a special person out there, meant just for them. Someone who’d be there for them no matter what, who’d love them through thick and thin, whose life would make theirs better. Her smile had been soft with affection as she explained that Dan’s dad was her soulmate, that the roses were the universe telling her that their relationship was growing.

“You’ll understand better when you’re older,” she’d said, but a whisper. “But for now, do you want to know what the colours mean, bear?”

He’d nodded, and she’d explained.

The yellow roses were friendship, she’d explained. She got hers when his dad realized that they were friends, good friends. It had just appeared on her nightstand overnight, a promise that there was something blooming there.

The orange roses were desire. One day he’d hear the word crush, she’d told him, and when his soulmate had one on him, he’d get an orange rose on his bedside table.

The pink roses were budding romantic feelings. She’d told him that one day he’d be in a relationship and he’d feel something that wasn’t quite love, but was more than just friendship. And when his soulmate realized they felt that for him, he’d get a pink rose.

And the last roses, a pair in the center, were red and symbolized love. Her cheeks had been as crimson as the flowers once were as she recounted how happy it had made her to find one sitting by her bed. And even at four years old, Dan had been smiling too.

He knew what love was. And he knew that he wanted a red rose of his own, one day.

\---

Except Dan has a red rose now.

It’s pinched between his fingers, held in front of his face. He’s sitting on the edge of his bed now, the call of sleep forgotten, the world narrowed to a single red rose. A bundle of petals full of promise and implications and _love_ and his younger, more innocent self imagined this moment full of giddy smiles and rosy cheeks.

Instead, he’s staring at the flower with furrowed brows and a frown twisting at his lips.

\---

The red rose isn’t the first one that’s appeared.

There’s a yellow one too, one that had almost shimmered in the low light of his childhood bedroom, in the eyes of a sadder, younger version of him. Dan had been eighteen and unable to believe that he even had a soulmate when he woke up one morning to petals as yellow as the sunshine sitting there, beautiful in their simplicity.

Even that version of him, the person who cried himself to sleep too often and spent too many nights wishing to just disappear, had mustered a smile at the sight.

It had been a promise, reassurance that there was someone out there meant just for him, for the broken boy full of self doubt and questions, who stayed up longing to have someone’s arms wrapped around him and a voice telling him it would be okay in a world where he didn’t feel his own insecurity crawling up his spine.

It was stupidly giddy, in retrospect, how he’d twirled the rose in his fingers for hours, staring at the brightness of the petals. How he’d sneaked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass of water to put it in so it’s brilliant colours wouldn’t wilt too soon. How he’d run his mind over everyone he’d met recently who may have considered him a friend that day.

He’d never told anyone about the rose. Not when his mother asked questions, or when his brother grew curious about the roses, or when his grandmother promised him he would one day meet his soulmate.

Not even that day, when his phone chimed with a message from Phil telling him he was glad they’d Skyped the night before, punctuated with an XD face that had Dan smiling happily at his screen.

\---

Dan’s pacing.

It’s a sudden realization, the kind reminiscent of crises that have his mind spinning and his world off kilter, his awareness of himself fading until Phil knocks at the door and asks if he’s okay. He’s still wearing nothing but his pants and the rose is still perched in his hand and his heart is racing and it’s _too much._

He sets the rose on his bedside table first, throws on a shirt and heads towards the door, but when his fingers close around the doorknob, he turns back, stomach twisting and eyes flitting down to the flower. He ends up rushing back, dropping it into his nightstand drawer instead, just in case.

Darkness flits at the edges of his thoughts when he imagines Phil coming into his room, seeing it there. He swallows them back, tells himself he just needs something normal and not laced with mystery to calm the thoughts shooting through his brain, burning like nausea in his chest.

He leaves his bedroom with the rose still haunting his thoughts, hoping Phil’s already up so he can have something to distract him.

\---

That isn’t normal either.

Dan walks into the lounge and Phil is bouncing to his feet, eyes too wide and jaw clenched. His gaze follows the lines of Dan’s body, lingers a moment too long on where one of Dan’s hands is buried in the pocket of his jeans, and after a moment, he lets out a shuddering breath, eyes finally drifting up to catch Dan’s.

Maybe it’s the rose in his bedroom. Maybe it’s the fact that Phil usually greets him with nothing but a shrug or some joking comment about how late it is for Dan to be getting out of bed. But there’s something uncomfortable in his chest, aching against his ribs, as he stares back at his friend.

He doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe, just waits, anxiety welling because life with Phil isn’t supposed to feel like this. It doesn’t usually feel like this, like social interaction he can’t maneuver and self-doubt making him want to tug at the bottom of his t-shirt or fix his fringe.

“How was your morning?”

The question almost has him stumbling back with its simplicity, has him schooling his features because surely, _surely_ Phil’s behaviour warrants a greater shift from the norm than small talk.

Dan might have a habit of reading too much into things, but it’s _Phil._ He knows Phil, knows their routine, that there’s no staring, no small talk, just bickering about cereal and anime and staying up too late the night before.

It’s never _this._

“Uh, okay?” he answers, though it comes out at as a squeak. “Nothing too eventful.”

And okay, maybe it’s a lie. Maybe he should be concerned that his soulmate somehow fell in love with him yesterday and he has no idea who they even are. Maybe he _is_. But Phil is– he’s Phil and Dan tells him everything, but this doesn’t fit that mold, somehow. This stays trapped in his chest just like the story of the yellow rose, his and his alone even with his best friend staring back at him with eyes so wide and worried Dan’s almost tempted to turn the question around on him.

He doesn’t, but mostly because Phil speaks first.

“Nothing?”

It’s tinged with … something. With relief or worry or disbelief, and Dan feels his brows furrow at the tone, forces himself to look away, to hide it.

There’s definitely something wrong. So many things wrong. There’s a red rose in his bedside table, and a soulmate somewhere who’s in love with him, and a best friend acting so, so _weird_ standing only a few feet away.

“Nothing,” he lies. “I’m just going to be … working on a video today.”

Phil nods. Dan does too.

And then he turns around and walks away without having eaten breakfast.

\---

Dan’s back hits the door first.

He’s standing in his bedroom and his palms are sweating, his knees are weak, his back is pressed to the door and a million questions play on repeat in his mind; A cycle of _rose_ and _soulmate_ and _Phil_ and _who, what when, where, why how,_ of heaving breaths and blurry vision and he pushes himself away from the door before he sinks to the ground, loses his mind to the uncertainty housed within it.

It’s not a video that occupies his thoughts. Not the pressure of creativity that weighs on his shoulders or the standard he holds himself too that has concern pounding in his veins.

He stares at his bedside drawer, imagining the rose hidden within, crimson petals, green leaves, and yellow thorns.

And he turns back to the door, reaches forward, flips the lock, before heading for his closet.

\---

The last time he’d seen the rose yellow had been when they moved to London.

Dan had moved the dictionary that had held it for so long into the Manchester flat, had found it again as he was packing up his stuff. His fingers had slid along the bundle of pages for minutes too long before he’d flipped the book open, revealed the dried, flattened rose hidden within.

It’s yellow petals had faded in time, grown rigid under the tentative touch of his fingertips. But still there was a smile spreading across his face at the sight, at the reminder of that day in his bedroom when his cheeks had burned pink for hours and the rose was so much more than just a flower hidden away in the deepest crevices of his space.

He’d set the dictionary aside, letting it hit the ground with a thud as he drew his knees to his chest, the flower still cradled between his palms. The stem was smooth from his careful efforts to remove the thorns back then, the petals flattened and yet still forming a small bud at their center.

Phil was rustling around in the next room, huffing about putting off packing for too long, so loudly that Dan could hear it, and it was the first time Dan almost showed someone the flower, stepped out of his bedroom to tell his best friend that years ago he and his soulmate had reached something worthy of a yellow rose and yet he had never found out who they were.

But he sat there, instead, curled up in a ball with hands cupped around a rose, staring at it for far too long with those same red cheeks and butterflies that he’d had back then.

And after a while, he’d reached into his closet, pulled out one of his old law books that he’d decided to keep, and wedged the flower into a new home between its pages.

\---

Dan hasn’t had a law book spread out before him in a long time.

Probably, he guesses, since the last time he took one out mid-existential crisis, brain swirling with questions of what would have been, if he should have, could have, would have finished his degree. When he needed to remind himself of how absolutely dreadful law was so he opened a book, read a page and set it aside.

But today he has one sitting on his lap, pages played and a yellow rose fallen into the dip between them.

He reaches for it, takes it between his fingers. It feels drier, somehow, though the colours are no more faded than they were two years ago when he’d last held it. But it doesn’t radiate with promise like it used to, doesn’t send butterflies to his stomach or make his cheeks flush or his brain whir with ideas of finding his soulmate with a warm heart and a smile that brightens his life.

It’s almost a threat now, as though it still has its thorns.

\---

Back then he hadn’t been happy.

Dan realizes it more now than ever.

Because now he walks around his apartment with lips curling upwards, films gaming videos laced with laughter and friendship, goes to bed at night worrying a little less. He can talk to people when he needs to and look at his life and find success and friendship and love and it’s so much more beautiful than his younger self could have imagined.

When the first rose showed up, he was sad. He was broken and confused. His friends had left and his future was nothing but a question mark and his mind was tainted with darkness and somehow within that spiral of breaking pieces he’d made a friend. A mystery friend who was also his soulmate and who would surely make his life better in time, who surely already had.

And the last time he saw it, he’d been scared. Scared of moving to London, of taking that risk. Of being a radio personality and his channel growing and people wanting more from him that he couldn’t give. His mind still echoed with voices telling him he was a failure for dropping out of uni, and his place in the world was growing so much, yet still seemed so wholly insignificant, and the rose was grounding.

It was that same promise.

That somewhere out there, there was someone meant just for him who would be there for him no matter what, and who would brighten his life.

Dan had needed that promise back then.

But he doesn’t need it now.

He isn’t even sure he wants it now.

\---

Dan’s pacing again.

This time with a yellow rose pinched between his fingers, his heartbeat just as erratic and a frown just as deep a they had been earlier. His breaths are still, and his thoughts are a mess, and he catches himself mid step just as he reaches the head of his bed again, stands right in front of the nightstand where his new rose is still hidden.

He almost turns away again, walks back towards the door, staring at his feet as though the answer to his predicament is disguised in the rhythm of footsteps he barely realizes he’s taking.

But then he’s reaching down, opening the drawer, closing his hand around the rose’s stem without any regard for the thorns that prickle against his palm.

His weight sinks onto the edge of his mattress, one rose in each hand splayed open over his thighs. Faded yellow petals of hope and vibrant red ones of life-changing implication.

Why did it have to show up at a time when he doesn’t want his life to change?

He tightens his grip on it, feels the thorns press harder to his palm without caring about the tinges of pain it causes. There’s anger welling now, past the shock and confusion and endless line of questions, burning on the tip of his tongue as shouts that he swallows back.

Why now?

Why when he finally has his life together? When he’s writing a book? When he has such a good home? When he’s _happy?_

Why did this person have to fall in love with him _now?_

His hand clenches even tighter around the rose, wounds starting to burn where the thorns cut through his skin.

Who even is this person threatening to tear the best time of his life apart?

It’s dawned on him before, but now it has his eyes going wide, mind finally ceasing its incessant confusion to still on that one question.

_Who?_

\---

They fell in love with him yesterday.

Whoever it is that made a rose appear on his nightstand overnight fell in love with him yesterday. Because that’s how the universe’s weird rose system works. Something changes in a relationship, and the next day a person gets a flower indicating that their soulmate realized this shift.

So whoever it is … they realized that they love him yesterday.

There’s just one problem with that.

Dan didn’t even leave the flat yesterday.

He woke up, had breakfast, and watched anime with Phil. He played video games with Phil, bickered about TABINOF content that needed to be written that day with Phil, and closed himself up in his bedroom to try to make some progress on writing. Then he’d ordered pizza and eaten dinner with Phil while watching TV, filmed a gaming video and helped Phil come up with an idea for his main channel. They’re spent the night working on the book, laughing together at the inside jokes they’d shared.

And somehow … between all that, someone had fallen in love with him.

\---

Dan blinks the thoughts away.

Images too vivid of a normal day, a normal series of events, of meals and work and hobbies and friendship with no romance, no love. No possible explanation for the rose that appeared overnight with its promise that something did happen when it shouldn’t have happened and _shit._

He blinks again, focuses the real world around him, looks down.

His hand is wrapped tight around the rose’s stem now, a burn erupting in his palm. He lets go, stares down at where his hand is still splayed over his thigh until his vision goes blurry.

There’s a drop of blood leaking along the lines of his cupped hand.

\---

Wounds. He needs to wash the wounds.

Dan bounds to his feet at the thought, wobbly on unsteady knees that mirror his thoughts, fingers that are shaking so much the red rose falls to the ground. And yet he manages a step forward. And another, his hands clenched into fists at his sides, knees still weak under the weight of his thoughts.

They don’t even hurt, the cuts on his hand.

But he needs–

Needs something clean and easy and straightforward. Something like washing the blood from his hand and covering it with a plaster, the systemic, familiar motions of it. The easy steps that make sense and aren’t riddled with questions.

He _needs_ it.

So he steps towards the door.

\---

There’s still a rose in his hand.

Dan realizes it when he goes to open the door and his fist is clenched around the dried stem of the yellow rose. Realizes it with a twist of anxiety in his gut and his eyes slamming shut and a breath more uneven than is warranted. With a desperate voice in his head telling him Phil can’t see the roses.

He can’t know.

About the roses.

About Dan’s soulmate.

He just … can’t.

So it’s with stumbling steps that he turns back into his bedroom. With a clumsy, still bleeding right hand,he opens the bedside drawer. He drops the yellow flower in first, turns and finds the thorny red one sitting on his floor and stuffs that one in the drawer too.

It slams shut too loudly. Hides the roses from sight.

Somehow, his breath is one of unwarranted relief.

\---

Dan walks into the lounge with footsteps too loud to be greeted with Phil already standing there, staring.

He has his phone in one hand and his fringe is pushed back into a quiff as though he’s been running his fingers through his hair, and there’s a pink stain on his cheeks that Dan can’t find a reason for. Not when his gaze turns to the TV where some nature documentary is playing, and not when it follows the lines of Phil’s body from his mismatched socks to his hands lingering at his sides to the look on his face.

His eyes are wide. Too wide.

“Are you okay?”

Dan almost chokes on his response. On a _why wouldn’t I be_ as though he hasn’t spent the last day locked in his bedroom without having so much as eaten, only to rush out with clumsy footsteps and thoughts just as messy.

Instead, he stares back.

At Phil.

Phil who’s also been acting strange all day. Who’s been jumping and attentive and worried and breaking their norm almost as much as Dan has.

Who’s–

Shit.

_Phil._

\---

“You’re bleeding.”

Dan blinks, and Phil’s coming towards him, all quick steps and worried eyes and _shit._ He’s reaching out, down to where Dan’s hand has been hovering at his side, fingers soft and attentive. Phil traces the line of Dan’s thumb and cradles the back of his hand, so careful as though the wounds are more than just slightly too deep puncture marks from a rose.

 _The_ rose.

That god, might’ve– could’ve --

Been because of _Phil._

Dan draws his hand back so quickly Phil’s head snaps up, eyes going impossibly wide, locked on his. Dan can’t breathe, not with Phil’s touch so soft and a new set of questions swirling through his mind. Not with eyes he knows too well but, fuck, not well enough staring back at him like _that._

“I’m fine,” he chokes. “It’s just, uh, procrastination gone wrong.”

There’s silence. It’s a dumb lie and they both know it, and Dan can’t help but wonder if Phil can see the truth gleaming behind his eyes.

If he can see roses in the crimson Dan can feel staining his cheeks.

\---

“Come on.”

Phil drags Dan from the lounge to the kitchen with promises that they’ll clean the wounds and stick a plaster on them, voice soft and soothing as though he thinks Dan’s a child.

And maybe he feels like one right now, with eyes wide with shock and the world overwhelming, as he lets his best friend—his soulmate?—lead him through their flat.

Dan could clean the wound himself. He knows that. Phil knows that. But still, there’s a hand wrapped around his, leading him, and his every movement and is easier like this. Easier to watch as Phil turns on the tap and presses Dan’s hand under the cascade of lukewarm water. As blood leaves watery streaks of crimson down his palm. As Phil turns away to retrieve a plaster from the cupboard.

His questions about how the wound happened go unanswered, because Dan can’t focus enough to come up with a lie.

Isn’t sure enough to tell the truth.

So he just watches. As Phil wipes the last bits of red away, dabs the wound clean with a paper towel. His touch is still gentle, warm and soft and it’s–

It’s anime and breakfast.

It’s Mario Kart mornings.

It’s pizza dinners.

_It’s Phil._

\---

The plaster is pressed to his skin and Dan’s pulling his hand away in an instant.

“I– I have to go.”

There’s a moment where Phil’s fingers twitch in the air between them, the motion as uncertain and confused as the look on his face, but Dan can’t. He just can’t stay here, so close, with so many thoughts and questions and memories and _god._

Could he be in love with his best friend?

“Idea,” he sputters. “I have an idea for my video.”

And he turns, runs back to his bedroom before Phil can say a word.

\---

Dan kicks the door shut behind him, flips the lock, and falls back against it.

The image is there again, vivid. The first thing he can think of, the first memory of the day and the last of the night and it’s there and bright and beautiful and ringing with laughter and soft with sleep and he can see it all now.

Four in the morning and they’re sitting in the gaming room, Phil’s laptop set aside and giggles echoing off the walls, but they’re silent. They’re still. Wedged into a corner, pressed together. Shoulders still shaking with silent amusement that shines brilliant and happy in the blurry edges of Dan’s memory.

Phil’s fringe was wayward over his eyes, his hair tickling the side of Dan’s face because they were so _close._

It would have been so easy to just reach out, slip his arm around Phil and draw him in close. To hold him there until they’d started falling asleep in each other’s arms with nothing but the glow of computer screens and straightness of their spines to remind them to stay conscious.

So easy to just turn his head, smudge sleepy smiles with soft kisses.

Regret twists in Dan’s gut at the image. Of thighs and shoulders and heads pressed together when it could have been easy touches and lips meeting in the quiet of night.

He shouldn’t want it.

He didn’t think he did want it.

But, fuck, he wants it.

\---

Dan’s in love with his best friend.

He stumbles forward onto his bed, and by the time his face hits the mattress he knows it’s true.

And then he’s turning his head, reaching out to open his bedside drawer so clumsy fingers can fumble within. Can find the red rose that suddenly seems less like a threat.

More like the promise the yellow one once was.

His best friend might be in love with him too.

\---

One can only stare at a red rose with a too-giddy smile for so long before they have to move.

For Dan, that time comes when his stomachs starts to grumble with protests at his lack of eating so far today. He’s still lying on his stomach on his bed, arm outstretched and rose resting near his hand on the black and white of his bedspread, and with the crushing weight of confusion and anxiety lifted, he’s _hungry._

Stepping from his bedroom now, though, seems so much less intimidating. His secrets feel less heavy, his world less narrowed to a single flower threatening everything he holds dear.

If it did appear because of Phil, that is.

He swallows back that thought, because it’s easier to ignore the possibility for now. The lack of doubt allows him to lift himself from his bed, set the roses back in his nightstand, and turn back to the rest of the flat.

When he walks into the lounge this time, Phil doesn’t jump with questions, but his gaze still turns to lock on Dan. Still wide eyed and worried and _something else_ that hits Dan with a shuddering breath.

If he’s right, if Phil’s his soulmate, then that thing layered behind his worry is … love?

It should be too much, right? Should be some startling realization of _oh shit everything’s about to change._ But it makes sense, if it’s true. It’s gleaming in blue eyes and warm in the air and nothing feels different, it just makes sense now, why it’s there.

 _If_ he’s right.

God, he wants to be right.

“Did you, uh, figure out your video?” says Phil.

Confusion comes first, until he remembers the lies he’s told, the feeble explanation for why he’s locked himself in his bedroom today. The one he’s sure Phil can see through and that he can feel seeping into the answer he gives.

“Yeah, I think I figured it out.”

And he did. He thinks. He’s almost certain now, as he watches Phil breathe a sigh of relief and his shoulders sag. The worry fades from his eyes, the look in them so familiar that it sends Dan’s heart racing again because _shit_ how did he not realize it sooner?

He walks into the lounge like he normally would, sinks onto the couch as though he hasn’t been acting strange all day.

“Want to order pizza and play Mario Kart?”

The responding smile that blooms across Phil’s face is answer enough.

\---

Phil almost always goes to bed before Dan.

Even when Dan is mid-crisis and Phil spends his day hovering at the edges of his pain, always ready to offer a helping hand, he’s the one that gives into the lulling draw of sleep first. Usually with quiet footsteps and whispers, a comforting squeeze of Dan’s shoulder and a question of if he’ll be okay, a promise that Dan can wake him up if he needs anything.

 _I promise,_ he’d say. _Even if you just need to talk something out._

Tonight is no different. Their time in front of the TV playing games is coming to a close, a late night sneaking up on Phil in the form of sagging shoulders and not-quite muffled yawns. He’s blinking too much and coming last in races and it’s endearing, in a way, that after a day apart, he’s not quite willing to slink away to his bedroom as though everything really is normal.

But then he drives into _another_ cow on one of the easiest courses, and Dan breaks out laughing, knocking their knees together as he comes in first.

“You should get some sleep,” he says.

Phil turns to him, fatigue foggy in his eyes, evident in his slight smile. “I’m fine.”

“You’re tired,” says Dan. “Not used to staying up so late, old man.”

Phil shoves him for that, laughing through his fatigue. But it falls quiet in a moment, with eyes locked and smiles tentative and his hand still pressed to Dan’s shoulder. To a lull of easy companionship laced with lingering concern and that sparkle that shines in the back of his eyes whenever he looks at Dan.

He swallows. Dan’s holding his breath.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

His response is a nod, a grin. “I’m great, Phil.”

“Okay.” It’s still laced with doubt, but Phil’s nodding and smiling. “You can wake me up if you need anything, even if it’s just someone to talk to.”

Dan’s smile widens, crinkles the corners of his eyes because this is normal. And soft and warm and weighted with meaning and it’s great. He’s doing great.

And then Phil’s squeezing his shoulder and pushing himself off the couch and walking away.

\---

There’s a voice in his head reminding him that he might be wrong.

But there’s a smile on his face, because he has a plan to prove that he isn’t.

\---

He waits a few hours, spends them scrolling tumblr, watching YouTube videos without any attention on his laptop’s screen. Waits until he’s sure Phil has been asleep for a while and the universe should know that it can drop a rose on his bedside as he dreams, without him being there to see it.

His heart is racing, gaze flicking between his dashboard and the time as though some five minute interval will make the difference.

As though waiting will make it more likely that he’s right.

He’s scared now. Anxious like he was this morning when his rose was a threat to the life he’s worked so hard to build, because it suddenly feels like Phil’s possible rose is even more dangerous. Its thorns sharper to match more vibrant petals of red, in his imagination.

Its presence feels almost necessary now.

Because Dan’s mind keeps drifting to nights spent watching TV together, that could be spent in each other’s arms. And how the sound of Phil’s heartbeat under his ear would probably calm him down when he needs it. And how this relationship they have is something he’s pretty sure he’ll never find with anyone else, no matter what.

How he doesn’t want _this_ with anyone else.

He glances at the clock again.

3:49.

And he stands.

\---

The first rose came the day after a Skype call.

Dan remembers it now.

They’d spent the night before staring at pixelated images of each other’s faces. It had been their second Skype call, full of nervous laughter and hiding behind their hands and rosy cheeks Dan had hoped wouldn’t show over his shitty webcam and equally terrible internet.

Dan had been shy and giggly, his feelings maybe a tad more than friendly at the time. He’d tugged at his t-shirt and fixed his fringe and spoken in whispers in part so his family wouldn’t hear and in part because he still couldn’t quite believe it was real.

He’d been Skyping _Phil._

And Phil had been warm and kind and a little shy and he made it so easy. He would stutter and stumble over his words, and Dan would giggle because it was cute and made him feel a little less bad for his own nerves. Phil was dark hair and pale skin in the dim lighting of his bedroom, and smiles and stories as wide and happy as Dan had ever seen.

It’s a wonder, in retrospect, that Dan never wondered if the rose was because of Phil back then.

Because their Skype call that day had ended with sleepy waves to their webcams, smiles met with promises to do it again some time.

And Phil had ended the call with a simple statement that had Dan smiling into his pillow until he fell asleep.

“I’m really glad we’re friends.”

\---

He almost doesn’t do it.

Dan’s hand is one Phil’s doorknob and his heart is racing, breath caught almost painfully in his chest and he _almost_ turns around. But there’s still a voice in his head reminding him that he might be wrong, and that if Phil gets a rose, he might not even tell Dan, and how is he supposed to know for sure otherwise?

So he forces himself to breathe, still leaning against Phil’s bedroom door.

And he pushes it open, blinking away the expanse of darkness, eyes searching for the one thing he _needs_ to see and–

_Holy fuck._

There it is.

On Phil’s nightstand.

A single red rose.

\---

“Dan?”

It’s muffled with fatigue and has Dan jumping back, hitting his back against the edge of Phil’s door frame, hand knocking against the wall as he tries to rebalance himself.

Tries to find his footing in a world that has both shifted irrevocably and stayed exactly the same.

“Wha’ time s’it?” mumbles Phil, wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. His checkered bedspread is tangled around his legs, bright blue pyjama pants having ridden up to reveal the pale skin of his legs. His fringe is a mess, mostly pushed back into a quiff by sleep, and his eyes are still so hazy Dan can tell even in the darkness of his bedroom in the middle of the night.

“Like four or something,” he murmurs in response, because it feels wrong to not speak after barging into Phil’s room and waking him up with curses he didn’t even realize he was saying out loud.

Phil groans at that, reaching over to fumble for his glasses and then to turn on his bedside lamp.

“What are you doing?” he asks. “Do you need to talk ab–”

There’s a moment.

A flicker of silence.

Dan’s cheeks are burning, his gaze flicking between Phil and his nightstand and the familiar decorations on his walls and the plushies littered across his dresser. His heart is racing because Phil will know, right? He’ll know why the rose is there and Dan is here and it’s overwhelming in the best away.

And then Phil’s fingers are pinched around the stem of the rose, still shaky with sleep but careful, and he’s turning to Dan with eyes so bright and hopeful and _shit._

He knows.

“You got a rose,” says Phil.

And his smile is one of the happiest Dan has ever seen.

\---

They end up in the lounge, surrounded by white walls and shared memories and sitting on the middle cushions of the sofa with only inches apart. The light is bright and Dan can still see Phil blinking against it, wiping the remnants of sleep from his mind. His rose sits on the coffee table, as bright and beautiful as Dan first thought his yellow rose to be.

It’s less personal than Phil’s bedroom, and yet it feels like more, because on the walls are memories they had together and in the space are the ghosts of simple days with easy smiles and this _thing_ between them that neither of them seemed to realize was there.

There’s anime breakfasts and pizza dinners and middle of the night TV marathons and afternoon gaming competitions floating at the peripheral of his mind as he stares at Phil.

“How did you know?”

Phil shrugs. His legs are tucked underneath him, elbow pressed to the back of the couch, and he lets his head fall to rest in his palm. “At first I just hoped,” he says. “I realized how I felt and felt _so_ dumb for not seeing it sooner. But suddenly I couldn’t imagine it being anyone else, you know?”

Dan’s smile cracks across his face, knowing and happy and _of course_ he knows. And where he thinks he should feel his chest caving in under the weight of this conversation, instead he feels light and happy, and he’s reaching over, poking at Phil’s side playfully.

Maybe it’s four am sleeplessness, the kind that makes you giddy and giggly and happy. Maybe it’s love he finally realizes has filled the empty space in his chest and made him so much happier than he ever thought he could be, that first day when the yellow rose appeared.

But he’s laughing and leaning forward and teasing. “If you're dumb for not realizing sooner, than what the hell am I?” he says. “I just realized _today._ ”

Phil’s grin is wide and happy as he reaches forward, his hand landing on Dan’s waist, drawing him closer so Phil’s knees are pressed against Dan’s and there’s only inches between them.

It dawns on Dan then, really hits him what they’re talking about.

They’re in _love._

“You’re dumber.”

Dan’s jaw drops, his gasp exaggerated and dramatic, and his hand is curling in the fabric of Phil’s shirt, meant to push him away but instead he’s leaning even closer. “You _spoon_.”

And goodness, he hears it now. Fondness and joy seeps from his tone and he wants to roll his eyes at himself but he’s smiling at Phil. It’s so late, the middle of the night has long since passed, a blur of video games and bickering and smiles shared as they won races. The sun will be rising soon, and in the darkness outside, brightness of their own little space, it’s so easy to get lost in it.

To be giddy with it.

To have giggles tumbling from his lips as he falls forward, head knocking against Phil’s before landing on his shoulder. Phil’s hand is still at his waist, and Dan’s is tucked next to his head at Phil’s shoulder, still wrapped around the fabric of his best friend’s shirt.

Maybe that’s why it’s so easy, he figures.

Because Phil’s his best friend, and laughing with him is instinctive, enjoying his company is ingrained into the very core of Dan’s life. Because the closeness has always been there, it’s just a little more, now, with minds less oblivious but hearts no different.

“We’re so dumb,” he says, laughter ringing in his tone.

Of course they should have realized it sooner.

But they’re wrapped in each other’s arms at four in the morning, smiling and happy and in love, and Dan’s not sure they should have.

Phil’s fingers trail along his side, drift to the base of his spine, to hold him close.

There’s something reverent in his voice, awed because now it’s _real._ For both of them. It’s not shocking revelations pressed together in the gaming room or pacing a bedroom with a flower in hand.

“We’re soulmates.”

\---

Dan puts the roses in a vase together, because sometimes he’s sappy enough to want to see the evidence of their realization sitting in the middle of their dining room table.

Phil smiles when he sees them, drops onto the other end of the couch and turns.

“Free, or Attack on Titan?” he asks.

And that’s why it’s easy.

\---

In retrospect, writing their book so late was the best idea.


End file.
